26.-27.11.2024
Small hall, main building, 4th floor (Fabianinkatu 33)
Keynotes will be streamed!
Tuesday 26.11.
9.45 Opening words
10.00 Keynote: Signe Rehling Larsen (University of Warwick/University of Copenhagen): "European Public Law after Empires"
Stream: https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l71
11.15 Small break
11.30 Panel 1: Europe, Empire and Law
Alezini Loxa (University of Lund): "EU Law, Migration and Racial Capitalism"
Daniel Acquah (University of Turku): “Intellectual Property and Empire”
Ville Erkkilä (University of Helsinki): "The imperial rule of law: Ernst Forsthoff and the Fight Against Weakness and the Welfare State"
13.00 Lunch break
14.00 Keynote: Liliane Umubyeyi (African Futures Lab, AfaLab): "Putting Global Europe on trial: A necessary condition to addressing the contemporary challenges of our times"
Stream: https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l71
15.15 Small break
15.30 Panel 2: Contemporary political economy & reparations
Matti Ylönen (University of Helsinki): "Reparations and debt cancellation: The curious silence about global democracy"
Kolar Aparna (University of Helsinki): "Languaging Black Feminist Poethics across margins"
Saila Heinikoski (Finnish Institute of International Affairs, FIIA): "Political economy of the EU migration partnerships"
17.00 Reception
Wednesday 27.11.2024
9.30 Keynote: Robin de Bruin (University of Amsterdam): "From Exemplary Empires to Exemplary ‘Guide Countries’ within the European Communities: Universal Exceptionalism in Europe"
Stream: https://video.helsinki.fi/unitube/live-stream.html?room=l71
10.45 Small break
11.00 Round table discussion with the three keynote speakers
12.00 Ending of conference
Dr. R.J. (Robin) de Bruin
Robin de Bruin: I am a senior lecturer (political history of European integration) at the European Studies Department of the University of Amsterdam. I published on topics such as Europeanisation and domestic change, political exemplarity, Eurocentrism and Euroscepticism. Over the last few years most of my research dealt with the connection between decolonisation and European integration. The research programme that PhD candidate Nuri Kurnaz and I are conducting, ‘Imperial exceptionalism or co-imperialism? Imperial powers and European unity’, examines the political imagination from the 1920s to the 1970s about the future course of imperial relationships. There is a strong connection between my research and my teaching. My chapter in the textbook The Unfinished History of European Integration which was published in English, German and Dutch originated from my lectures in a first-year course on the history and theory of European integration.
Dr. Signe Rehling Larsen
Signe Rehling Larsen is an Associate Professor of Law at Warwick Law School (starting January 2025) and a Carlsberg Fellow at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. Signe has previously held posts as a Fellow by Examination at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, and as a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. Signe studied law, politics, and philosophy at the London School of Economics, the New School for Social Research, Bard College Berlin, and the University of Copenhagen.
Signe’s research is concerned with the study of constitutions from theoretical, historical, and comparative perspectives. She is particularly interested in the constitutional history and theory of empires and federations and their legacy for contemporary public law, both domestic and transnational. She is currently working on a number of research projects spanning from comparative federalism and varieties of constitutionalism in the European Union, to an examination of the legacy of empire for European public law.
Signe is the author of The Constitutional Theory of the Federation and the European Union (Oxford University Press, 2021). Other recent publications include ‘Varieties of Constitutionalism in the European Union’ (2021) in the Modern Law Review, Volume 84, Issue 3, pages 477-502; ‘European Public Law after Empires’ (2022) in European Law Open, 1, pages 6–25; and ‘Constitutional Pathways in Scandinavia’ in The Legitimacy of European Constitutional Orders, edited by M. Dani, M. Goldoni, and A. Menéndez (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023).
Dr. Liliane Umubyeyi
Liliane Umubyeyi is a Rwandan and Belgian Rule of Law and Access to Justice researcher and practitioner. Prior to establishing AfaLab, Liliane worked in the field of international development (United Nations, United Nations Development Program, International Centre for Transitional Justice, Lawyers without Borders, and the American Bar Association) on projects concerning access to justice for marginalized groups, transitional justice, and gender justice. This professional background and her lived experience in Africa (Rwanda, South Africa, Central African Republic) and in Europe (Belgium, France) inform her thinking about the decolonization of development policy and practice, the decolonization of international law and justice systems, and the possibilities for repairing historical and contemporary racial violence. Liliane holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan (France) and in Law from the Université Saint Louis Bruxelles (Belgium), and her dissertation focused on apartheid victims' mobilizations in South African and American courts.
Registration is open until 18.11.2024 (9pm).
Keynote: Signe Rehling Larsen (University of Warwick/University of Copenhagen): "European Public Law after Empires"
The end of European empires is one of the most significant geopolitical transformations of the twentieth century. With the decline and eventual collapse of these empires, a new geopolitical order emerged where Europe was no longer the center of gravity. Instead, this new world order was structured by the superpowers of the Cold War—the United States and the Soviet Union—as well as the rise of the Global South. However, while the transformation of the global order at the end of European empires has received considerable attention within public international law, International Relations, and postcolonial studies, the transformation of Europe after empires remains underexplored. This applies both to the emergence of the project of European integration and the transformation of domestic public law.
In this keynote address, Signe Rehling Larsen presents an ongoing collaborative research project entitled European Public Law after Empires she is currently co-leading with Philipp Dann (University of Humboldt), which aims to address this gap. European Public Law after Empires brings together lawyers, post-colonial scholars, international political economists, and global historians to explore the transformation of European public law, including the emergence of the EU legal order, in light of the end of European empires. The book will focus on legal discourse and scholarship, in conjunction with a broader discussion of the legacy of empires for Europe by including perspectives from post-colonial studies, international political economy and global history on the legacy of empire for Europe.
PANEL 1: EUROPE, EMPIRE AND LAW
Ville Erkkilä (University of Helsinki): "The imperial rule of law: Ernst Forsthoff and the Fight Against Weakness and the Welfare State"
This talk will examine the continuity of imperialist ideas in the European legal tradition through the works and life history of the German legal philosopher Ernst Forsthoff. Ernst Forsthoff was one of the most important and influential conservative jurists of the post-World War II Federal Republic of Germany, whose writings on the relationship between law and state continue to inform European debates about the future of the rule of law and the welfare state and how best to put them into practice. Before the war, however, Forsthoff was also one of the most prominent legal scholars in the service of the Nazi cause, and his writings were instrumental in creating a new kind of National Socialist state and legal system.
Through the Forsthoff case, I explore how pre-World War II imperialist ideas have been carried over into contemporary conceptions of law and state: what are the possible forms of their interaction, and what social futures are produced by different reconciliations of law and state? Forsthoff did not dogmatically repeat the same message in his changing political contexts, and Forsthoff's ideas, when applied to post-World War II Europe, do not primarily promote a National Socialist ideology. However, through the Forsthoff case it is possible to analyze the blind spots in contemporary European socio-legal discourse and to see how Europe's imperial past influences the choices and interpretations of the present.
Alezini Loxa (University of Lund): "EU Law, Migration and Racial Capitalism"
A foundational myth has driven the development of EU scholarship and institutional practice, which emphasizes the dichotomy between privileged EU citizens and excluded non-EU migrants. The presentation revisits this myth by bringing insights from racial capitalism to bear on EU law and the ways in which it regulates migration. By an analysis of primary and secondary law in the area of free movement and migration, the presentation maps how EU migration law is constitutive of profit-making processes in parallel to and on top of the race-making ones, which have already been explored in literature. The parallel and mutually reinforcing race-making and profit-making features of EU migration law frame it as a legal system which creates stratified rights and shapes hierarchies among non-citizens in Member States’ domestic laws. These features are then situated in a theoretical analysis on the position of migration in EU constitutional theories.
Without providing an exhaustive historical analysis of EU migration law and all the different ways in which it has been producing and reinforcing racial and economic hierarchies, the presentation sets the basis for closer engagement with racial capitalism in EU law. It is suggested that a closer investigation of the historical development of EU migration law, which took place in parallel with decolonisation, carries an even stronger potential of understanding the normative imprint of racial capitalism and European imperialism on EU migration law.
Daniel Acquah (University of Turku): "Intellectual Property and Empire"
The lowering of the British flag in Hong Kong in 1997 and the Portuguese flag in Macau in 1999 marked the completion of decolonization and signalled the end of empire. However, while these events were politically significant, the legacy of empire persisted in other ways, particularly through intellectual property (IP) law. The foundational treaties of international IP protection — such as the Berne Convention and the Paris Convention — were established within the economic, sociological, and political context of nineteenth century neo-imperialism. This presentation will focus specifically on Africa and demonstrate how European colonial powers created systems to ensure the continuation of the empire through IP law, both before and after the war. At its most provocative, the presentation will draw parallels between empire and neocolonialism.
Keynote: Liliane Umubyeyi (AfaLab): "Putting Global Europe on trial: A necessary condition to addressing the contemporary challenges of our times"
This presentation invites us to reflect not only on the significance but also on the urgency of putting Global Europe on trial. I argue that this trial is a necessary condition if the global community is to face up fairly and seriously to the contemporary socio-political, economic and environmental challenges of our times. The failure to acknowledge Europe's role in perpetuating global inequalities and injustices over the past six centuries has contributed to their intensification, creating a multitude of challenges and crises that the planet must address to ensure its survival. In order to effectively address these challenges, it is imperative to move beyond denial and to gain a comprehensive understanding of the multifaceted responsibilities of European countries and actors in these persisting crises and global injustices. Without this understanding and the requisite truth-telling, there is a significant risk of once again devising inadequate solutions that fail to align with the complexities of our future challenges.
PANEL 2: CONTEMPORARY POLITICAL ECONOMY&REPARATIONS
Matti Ylönen (University of Helsinki): "Reparations and debt cancellation: The curious silence about global democracy"
A growing debate has emerged on reparations and reparatory justice within social movements and critical social sciences. With few exceptions, this literature has been curiously lacking comprehensive proposals for the management of sovereign debts through global, representative bodies. This silence is puzzling, given how prominent odious/illegitimate debts and global initiatives for resolving them were across policy and academic forums in the 2000s. The case of the CARICOM commission – arguably the most high-level policy initiative for turning the case of reparatory justice into policies – is illustrative. While its “reparation plan” mentions the need of debt cancellation and monetary compensation, it lacked any mentions on how to bring them into reality. Hence, it missed a major opportunity to tap into the early 2000s ideas on permanent, globally representative mechanisms and structures for the long-term, equitable handling of sovereign debt crises. Similar omissions seem often characterize academic debates on reparatory justice. While the exact reasons behind these omissions go beyond the scope of this presentation, there seems to be a breakdown between, on the one hand, the epistemic communities of the early-2000s globalization movement, and, on the other hand, the contemporary reparatory justice movements. Bridging this gap is of urgent importance to push reparations debates to their next frontier.
Kolar Aparna (University of Helsinki): "Languaging Black Feminist Poethics across margins"
The praxis of a Black Feminist Poethics outlined by Da Silva (Da Silva, 2014) calls for not separating the juridic and economic violence of colonial architectures of slavery sustaining global capital today from the symbolic violence of linear space-time assumptions of philosophy, modes of representation in modern (social) scientific inquiry, and the production of the category of Blackness as object, commodity, Other. This premise that continues to justify ongoing racial violence, and upon which contemporary mechanisms for reparations and decolonisation are built upon is called to be emancipated. Inspired from such a call I read historical texts part of multilingual cultural repertoires against slavery and caste apartheid, and from the exilic condition at and across the Indian Ocean and Atlantic Oceanic worlds (inspired from Coolitude (Carter & Torabully, 2002), related to Négritude) to language the Black Feminist Poethical praxis of reconstruction across margins. Such a modality does not separate the juridic and economic from the symbolic, and their political implications on the scope of decolonization for reconstructing and restoration of total value of expropriated lands and slave labour. I discuss the potential of such readings across margins for unleashing political, poethical imaginations that are relational, opening other ways of knowing and doing.
Saila Heinikoski (Finnish Institute of International Affairs, FIIA): "Political economy of the EU migration partnerships"
In September 2024, the European Court of Auditors concluded that the EU’s Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (EUTF) has not been “sufficiently focused on the priorities of addressing the root causes of instability, irregular migration and displacement on the African continent”.This raises a broader question of the political economy of the external dimension of EU migration policy – how well is the money spent? The EUTF will cease operations in 2025, and the general emphasis seems to be shifting to partnerships with key countries of origin and transit. With the EU-Tunisia Memorandum of Understanding concluded in July 2024, migration is one of the five pillars, with total support possibly exceeding one billion. With Mauritania, a political declaration on migration was accompanied by €210 million support for the country, while Egypt was promised €7.4 billion in grants and loans as part of the comprehensive partnership, including migration. A pertinent question, however, relates to the effectiveness and democratic legitimacy of the partnerships. The partners may not have democratically governing leaders, and the partnerships have been concluded under Commission’s lead with little consultation with the European Parliament or national governments. And what is the EU expecting to achieve with these types of partnerships?
Keynote: Robin de Bruin (University of Amsterdam): "From Exemplary Empires to Exemplary ‘Guide Countries’ within the European Communities: Universal Exceptionalism in Europe"
Until recently, imperialism, neo-imperialism, and postcolonial resentment were generally excluded from the history of European integration. In February 2020, shortly before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, gave a short speech at the official dinner of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa. In his speech, he emphasized to his audience of politicians from African countries that “[y]our northern neighbour is changing. I am here tonight to speak for twenty-seven European countries. Twenty-one of them never had any colonies.”
Like Michel, many of today’s leading politicians in the European Union (EU) present European integration as a fresh start after decolonization. This sense of a new beginning corresponds with the self-perception of many European colonial powers as historically homogeneous nation-states with overseas possessions whose colonial histories could be separated from their European continental history.
However, this vision not only ignores the fact that every form of colonialism exemplified a shared European mental framework regarding the capacities and the right of the white man to rule overseas countries and territories. It also overlooks that each European colonial power developed its own traditions within this framework that continued to influence them after the dissolution of their empires. Until the 1960s, many politicians and high officials in European colonial empires often regarded the colonial traditions and convictions of their own countries as the singular good exception in the realm of European imperialism (“imperial exceptionalism”). The certainty of one’s own uniqueness and exemplary character in a European context also played a role in the decolonization process and subsequently influenced the divergent European Communities’ policies that various member states envisioned regarding the ‘Global South’. This lecture will examine these continuities.
The conference venue is Small Hall (pieni juhlasali), Main Building (Fabianinkatu 33), 4th floor.
You can reach the conference venue easily by walking or public transport. It's a 10 minutes walk from the Central Railway Station to the University's Main Building located on the left side of the Senate's Square. You can also take the trams 2, 4 or 7 to the stop Senaatintori.
We warmly invite you to participate in the 'Global EUrope on Trial' conference 26.-27. November 2024 at the University of Helsinki, Main Building (Fabianinkatu 33). The conference will be held in the Small Hall of the Main Building located on the 4th floor.
There is no conference fee for participants. You can find the registration form above. Travel to and accommodation in Helsinki is covered by the participants.
If you have any questions or need more information concerning the conference, please do not hesitate to contact us: eurostorie-events[at]helsinki.fi.
We follow the Responsible interaction Guidelines in our event:
Principles of Responsible interaction in the University community
Be sensitive. The University community consists of diverse individuals. Do not, based on external appearances, make assumptions or generalisations about someone’s first language, origin, religion or lack thereof, beliefs, health, functional ability, gender, sexual orientation or other background. Respect everyone’s right to self-determination and non-determination, i.e., the right to decide and tell others how they identify and experience themselves.
Respect others and be kind. Respect other community members and their experiences. Respect other people’s boundaries. Don’t make offensive remarks or touch other people without their permission. If your actions cause offence, apologise and discuss the matter openly. Don’t judge other people for their erroneous behaviour, but do bring up the issue with them.
Be courageous, and give and receive feedback. Some of us have long been practising sensitivity towards others in our speech and behaviour, while others are just getting started. What counts the most are our mindset and willingness to be sensitive to others. Together we can build trust and a culture of open, courageous discussion, in which we can address issues and learn about sensitivity together. If someone uses an offensive term or describes a situation incorrectly, correct them gently. If you make a mistake, acknowledge it and apologise: “I’m sorry. Thank you for correcting me”. Try not to repeat the mistake.
We don’t accept harassment, racism, ableism or discrimination based on personal characteristics or background, such as gender, physical features, age, origin, nationality, language, religion or lack thereof, belief, opinions, political activity, trade union activity, family relations, health, disability or sexual orientation.
Call it out. If you observe harassment or other inappropriate behaviour, don’t be a bystander. Defend the person being harassed and tell the perpetrator that what’s happening is not okay.
If you experience or observe harassment, discrimination or inappropriate behaviour, contact a supervisor, teacher, event organiser, head of human resources, occupational safety delegate, shop steward or harassment contact person.
Harrasment contact person for our event is Tuija Von Der Pütten tuija.vonderputten@helsinki.fi